


A Matter of Howe

by AndyAO3



Series: Tales of a Tiny Angry Warden [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: But that'd have to be some hella squinting, Drabble Fic, Gen, I suppose if you squint, Mild angsting, Nathaniel is a deadpan snarker, Thar be bad language, The Warden is a little shit, not shippy really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel didn't know that idealism could still manage to survive in Thedas without an unhealthy dose of blissful ignorance. That is, not until the Warden-Commander showed him just how it was done: wrap it up snugly in a few thick layers of cynicism, bitterness, and sheer bullheaded stubbornness.</p>
<p>Awakening drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Matter of Howe

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's short, but I wanted to post it anyway. It turned out not-half-bad. I thought about adding more to it, but realized that it might detract from what's there, so I decided to just leave it as it is.

"Hot _damn_ , Nate," the Warden Commander said. "You're a better shot than Lelly."

_Please don't call me Nate_ , Nathaniel Howe thought with a twinge of annoyance. Not that he could stop anyone from doing it - Anders had started it, the fool - but he'd really rather they not do it at all. Being called Nate made him feel like he was ten years old again. Although it was better than being called _Howe_ , considering the sheer contempt with which that name was regarded.

Some days, he still wished he'd been hanged instead of conscripted. The amount of bullshit he had to deal with as a Warden made his years spent in the Free Marches look like a peaceful, blissfully lonely stroll in comparison. But in spite of the difficulty, there were brief moments when Nathaniel caught himself having just the tiniest amount of _fun_. Along with the nebulous idea of some sort of redemption for his family, those moments helped to keep him from doing anything as cowardly as running off.

And, he had to admit, getting recognition for his achievements was something he couldn't say he minded. To Nathaniel, the concept was actually a bit novel. "And who's this Lelly?" he asked, walking up to the practice dummy and retrieving his arrows from the damp straw.

"Oh, uh. Leliana." For a commanding officer, Surana was almost ridiculously... _friendly_. Although, Nathaniel supposed that depended on who the Warden Commander was talking to. He'd seen the unimpressive-looking elf rip into others without so much as a moment's hesitation. Usually humans. Particularly _nobles_. "Friend of mine. Orlesian bard."

Nathaniel tensed at the _Orlesian_ bit. "You counted an Orlesian spy as a _friend_?" He turned to look the smaller man in the eye.

The Commander narrowed his eyes right back. "Yes, I did." His voice lowered dangerously. "And an Antivan elf assassin. And a thousand-year-old dwarven golem. And a possessed Circle spirit healer. And a Qunari. And an apostate witch. And _Oghren_. And the bastard prince of Ferelden. If you've got a problem with any of that, then kindly keep it to yourself."

_Ah_. So that was how it was going to be. Nathaniel straightened. "My apologies for speaking out of turn, Commander," he said stiffly.

"Andraste's tits, Nate, that's not--" Surana sighed irritably and turned his gaze away to glare at a nearby wall, his jaw tense. "Look. I don't want you thinking of me as a _commander_ , okay? We're all Wardens here. But that also means that you have to keep in mind that we're Wardens _first_ , and all that nationalist, racist bullshit gets left behind the moment you drink from that cup. Got it?"

"Forgive me if that statement rings hollow coming from the man who _saved Ferelden_ , ser," Nathaniel said, giving his commanding officer a bland look. He got an exasperated one from the Warden Commander in return.

"I didn't save your precious human country out of any sense of patriotism, Nate. If the Blight was to be stopped and lives were to be saved, then the nobles needed to stop trying to tear out each others' throats for five minutes and at least _try_ to get along."

"So your uniting the country under Anora's banner and giving them all something to despise more than each other - the actions of my father and Teyrn Loghain - was not done out of any sort of love you have for the land in which you were born? You would have felt no remorse had you failed to preserve your homeland?"

"I'm a _elf_ , dumbass. And a _mage_." He looked at Nathaniel with something like annoyance, but it was that particular sort of annoyance that he reserved for humans who were being especially dense. "What home do I have that I can take any sort of pride in? I wasn't saving Ferelden. I was saving its _people_."

Nathaniel still didn't quite believe it. No man was that altruistic. "And what reason do you have to save the people of a nation you have no love for?"

"Respect for the lives of individuals," the Ferelden Commander of the Grey answered immediately. "Every last one of them is a person like you or I, with their own lives, their own goals, their own motivations and hardships and triumphs and losses. _That_ is what I'm protecting, and what I fucking _refuse_ to condemn to death at the hands of the darkspawn."

For that, Nathaniel had no answer, and the commander knew it.

Yet he wasn't smug. If anything, he seemed to soften a little. "It's a hard concept for some people to get their heads around, I know," he said. "I'm not going to try to force you to understand or agree, either. But if anyone in this keep besides Anders and myself can get it, it'd be you."

"Why me?" the marksman blurted without thinking, immediately realizing how silly it sounded. Then again, he _did_ want to know.

And then Teodorus Surana, Hero of Ferelden, gave the man that had tried to kill him once a weirdly sad, slightly crooked smile. "You're one of the few humans I've met that doesn't suck."

He wandered off after that, leaving Nathaniel to his target practice in the keep's training yard. Probably for the best; Nathaniel had little to add that did not seem foolish, after that.


End file.
